Having discovered that Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA (MAMZ) a.k.a. "Kos" of DailyKos) has a long history of activism for the Republican Party and, furthermore, he trained and worked with the US CIA between 2001 and 2003, research has revealed and established the following, and therefore justice and history now bring this thirty-one count Indictment.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

What Distinguishes MAMZ from other Retired Military Propagandists?

I'm recovering from a near-fatalbike crash, so I'll make this short and quick, leaving out supporting links because of my accident and because they can be found elsewhere in this blog by using key words in the search bar above, or simply referring to the links in the right sidebar.

A lot of what I learn comes from watching my Site Meter and researching the issues in which my readers express interest, i.e. readers search at Google and find their way to this blog looking for specific information about its subject. Today, I believe one of my readers was asking himself, "What distinguishes ex-military, CIA-trainee Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ) from others right-wingers who have left paid jobs with the military to accept paid jobs as media talking heads?

In an April 20, 2008 New York Times article entitled,"Message Machine: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand, Times writer David Barstow tells us how retired military (like MAMZ) have been used by the White House and the Pentagon to covertly shape our views of reality with respect to the Iraq War (and probably quite a lot of other issues):

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Of course, the New York Times is unlikely to be blameless in this farce. They may well have known about it in real time and only divulged the information when President Bush had already achieved his strategic goals.

The objective of this program was to covertly use ex-military people who were, in fact, still working for the Government, to influence US public opinion. Isn't that the MAMZ story? He's ex-military, ex-CIA-trainee, and then he's in the media telling us what to think about the Iraq War (don't resort to civil disobedience); Democratic candidates (ex-military like himself are the best candidates, says MAMZ) and myriad other issues.

What does the Government gain by this. First of all, there is no need to invite real leftists to represent the progressive opinion on television when you can present an ex-military, CIA-trained fake leftist instead. The public believes it is hearing a range of views when all it is hearing is the gamut of Pentagon propaganda.

Why should they invite the US Ambassador from Cuba or Venezuela to represent leftist views when they have an in-house "leftist" who will reliably not say anything illuminating?

Of course some of the public, right and left, was convinced that MAMZ is a wild leftist because he said he didn't give a damn about US contractors who were burned on a bridge in Iraq. But that head-fake was merely for the purpose of gaining street credibility as a "leftist".

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd prefer to hear from the leftist view from Ambassador of Venezuela or Cuba rather than from an ex-military CIA-trained propagandist. MAMZ says that he doesn't care about issues and only about electing Democratic candidates. With the Republican and Democratic parties in basic agreement to pursue control of Iraq as well as war in Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Yemen, how much difference does it really make to Pentagon military-industrial goals whether the Democrats or Republicans are in office? The paradigm is the same regardless of its spokesmen.

Has "leftist" MAMZ ever presented and argued for an alternative paradigm about anything? Is he a socialist? No! Does he advocate for the Venezuelan view of Latin America? Of course not! By claims not to care about issues. How can the Left of any nation be led by someone who doesn't care about political issues and is only interested in political parties? If you don't care about political issues, then how do you choose between political parties?

MAMZ says he left the Republican Party because of its position on "states' rights". States' rights is an issue and a relatively obscure one, except to those who know that it's a code word for anti-gay, anti-Black, anti-women and anti-disabled. States rights was and remains the rallying cry of the Klu Klux Klan and the most conservative members of the US Supreme Court.

All this is to say that the only thing that distinguishes MAMZ from the Pentagon generals above is that MAMZ claims to be a leftist while being a-political enables him to support the status quo and be acclaimed by the mainstream media as a radical. It must be fun to be a radical who never has to actually say or do anything radical.

I don't read DailyKos, but I read the New York Times and the Washington Post. I've seen MAMZ attack Hillary Clinton in the Washington Post, but I've never heard him attack the expansion of US wars to from Iraq to Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Yemen. If he's really a leftist, then why doesn't he join forces with Hugo Chavez or at least President Lula Ignacio Lula da Silva of Brazil. In fact, most of Latin America has heard nothing at all about MAMZ, except perhaps that he is the wealthiest and most influential blogger leftists in a country that has no other wealthy and influential ex-military, ex-CIA (?) leftists.

The truth is that leftists don't get much play in America, if they are real leftists. When was the last time you saw Congressman Bernie Sanders or Kucinich on Meet the Press? MAMZ never 'crashed any gates'. He was born and bred within the gates of the Salvadoran oligarchy, his brother went to that great bastion of leftism called Yale University; MAMZ supported Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, as well as arch right-wing Henry Hyde; he trained at the CIA and then crashed the gates of the Establishment with the most right-wing credentials of any leftist in the history of American politics.

MAMZ never was outside the gates. He pretended to be so, between the end of his training at the CIA (2003) and his first article attacking Hillary Clinton for the Washington Post (2006). He crashed the gates of a warm and wet vagina, which was yearning for an already familiar penis.

"Sure, I could always talk against racism, fight ignorance and prejudice wherever I ran into it, yet I would always be looking in from another room and I could always close the door. My life, in my world, in my own detached selfishness. And as I left the ugly reality of racism behind, it struck me that what was such an easy and trivial exercise for me would be impossible for anyone whose skin color or religious persuassion (sic) made them the target of bigotry and discrimination. THEY would never be able to escape who THEY were." (Emphasis added.)

"When they 'crash the gates', will they take our cross?"

"A candidate's religion continues to play a key role in shaping vote choice. Nearly four-in-ten (39%) say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who is Christian. Moreover, 63% say they would be less inclined to support a presidential candidate who does not believe in God – the most negative trait tested."

New online book says Kos family member is president of the Association of Salvadoran Hotels and president of the Salvadoran National Tourism Board. Moulitsas lied when he said his family is not wealthy or influential.

DailyKos' Demographics

If a Link Here Doesn't Work . . .

If a link doesn't work, be patient. Look for an updated link in the articles below, use the search function in the top left, and/or look to this list of all but one of the articles written by Markos C. A. Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ) when he was at Northern Illinois University (NIU), writing extreme right-wing letters to the editor. Interestingly, the one known missing article still is not in the archives although it was faxed to me by Northern Star staff and republished here.
That article was the first in a series of five articles about "racism", four of which were assigned tasks and described the "racism" and religious persecution problems on campus based on interviews.

"And as I left the ugly reality of racism behind, it struck me that what was such an easy and trivial exercise for me would be impossible for anyone whose skin color or religious persuassion (sic) made them the target of bigotry and discrimination. They would never be able to escape who they were." (Emphasis added.)

Atty. Francis L. Holland in the Media

"Francis L. Holland, one of the vocal black bloggers, sent e-mails to DNC officials asking that 15 black-operated blogs be added to the State Corps. "There is nothing 'Democratic' about an all-white Democratic National Convention floor blogging corps," he wrote in an e-mail. Holland is also asking for the inclusion of 15 Latino-operated blogs."

"Or, as Obama supporter Francis L. Holland puts it: "So, it shows tremendous courage, foresight and solidarity that Edwards has endorsed Obama after the media declared Hillary's campaign to be as good as dead, right? Oh, well! Better late than never!"

"Of the blogs covering the convention, black blogs will be 7.2% of the blogs present,” says Francis L. Holland of the Afrosphere Action Coalition. According to Holland, many states with a strong black Democratic presence and population are either underrepresented or not represented at all, even though black bloggers from these states did apply. “The state of Tennessee, which often has over 25% blacks among its Democratic primary voters, will not have a single black blogger at the Democratic National Convention, for example. The District of Columbia, which is 60% black, will be left out. Louisiana, which is 32.4% black, will be left out. Illinois, the presidential nominee’s home state, which is 15% black, will be left out.”

In 2008, the Democratic "party came under fire from African American bloggers. Francis L. Holland of the Afrosphere Action Coalition, complained to Black Enterprise magazine that black blogs only made up slightly more than 7% of the bloggers credentialed for the convention."

"We are tired of Hillary Clinton telling America that we are less than American simply because we refuse to vote for her," said Francis L. Holland, an African American blogger." Ironically, the Clintons embraced us, and even embraced Pastor Jeremiah Wright for support during their impeachment scandal." Holland was speaking of the congressional trial that followed former president Bill Clinton's liaison with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. "She has forfeited the black vote for the foreseeable future with her color aroused appeals."

“November’s voter turnout depends on August’s blogger outreach,” said Mr. Holland of the Afrosphere Action Coalition., a member of a national and international black bloggers’ coalition called “The AfroSpear.” “Blogs address constituencies, and it simply is not possible for blogs that are all-white to effectively reach diverse Democratic constituencies.”

"Of the blogs covering the convention, black blogs will be 7.2% of the blogs present," says Francis L. Holland of the Afrosphere Action Coalition. According to Holland, many states with a strong black Democratic presence and population are either underrepresented or not represented at all, even though black bloggers from these states did apply. “The state of Tennessee, which often has over 25% blacks among its Democratic primary voters, will not have a single black blogger at the Democratic National Convention, for example. The District of Columbia, which is 60% black, will be left out. Louisiana, which is 32.4% black, will be left out. Illinois, the presidential nominee's home state, which is 15% black, will be left out."

"Francis Holland is a blogger from Afrospear, a national group of bloggers that advocates for African-Americans. When he looked at the list of State Bloggers, he saw no black blogs among them. Holland explains that the process the Democratic Convention planners used to choose the State Blogger Corps was bound to lead to this result. And he argues that the Democratic Party can scarcely afford to alienate black voters in this election year." (The original link no longer works, which is becoming a growing documentation problem on the Internet.)

"Electing Edwards to challenge the status quo is like supporting a queen to challenge the monarchy or integrating an all-white club by adding more all-white club members. It is possible that electing yet another white man to the Presidency will end the poverty of the historically disenfranchised, with John Edwards serving as a "pass through" for those who have historically been disincluded legally and by custom. But this is a very convoluted way of achieving what could be achieved much more directly by electing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. ..."

Disclaimer:
Although I am a trained attorney, I am retired and am not an active member of any state Bar. Therefore, I advocate in all matters on my own behalf and not as the legal representative of any person, group or organization.